"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Monday, April 04, 2016

Trump Is A Work Of Fiction But...

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The next phase of the Republican Party primary will feature Trump suing individual state parties as they all start ganging up on him-- surely not coordinated by the Paul Ryan Coronation Committee; just a coinkidink-- and stealing his delegates. South Carolina has threatened to take all the state's delegates all from him for saying he no longer considers the loyalty pledge in effect. Louisiana already gave 10 Trump delegates to Cruz and Trump says he's suing the party. Tennessee's delegate contingent has been engineered to be anti-Trump enough for Trump to threaten a suit there as well, especially after the party establishment bosses called the police on Trump protesters Saturday.

While Trump deploys his attorneys to the 50 states, crackpot Trumpist Alex Jones has asked 5 million Trumpists to show up in Cleveland and Trump's chief-advisor-who-they-say-isn't, Roger Stone, says he's takin' it to the streets. Republicans will have to get ready for... wait for it... street theater. Maybe it's just another Roger Stone scam to get Trump-suckers to send him money but when he and Alex Jones aren't talking about Hillary's lesbianism and sex crimes, they're trying to drum up the riots Trump mentioned a few weeks ago-- and in very apocalyptic terms. Listen:

Stone has now announced a Stop The Steal March On Cleveland to keep Paul Ryan from being crowned. He called it DaysOfRage when he was interviewed by Buzzfeed last week. Asked to elaborate, Stone, a notorious dirty trickster and scam artist, said he was talking about "rally-protests -at delegate hotels street theater."

Stone said the campaign was not involved in organizing this, instead saying the protests will be “organized by Trump nation,” but said that “we did inform them.” He said he had “issued the call to action” on Infowars, the Alex Jones-run conspiracy show, on March 30, that they “will stage protests at hotels of state delegates of states supporting the BIG STEAL,” and that he and Jones would be speaking (Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul are both invited)...[In a GQ interview last week], Stone hinted at unrest at the convention, saying “I think there’d be extreme anger by the Trump supporters. I don’t know that it would boil over into violence. Trump is certainly not advocating violence.”There have been a spate of violent incidents at Trump rallies, and the campaign appears to condone violence from the top down-- Trump has stood by his campaign manager who has been charged with simple battery after grabbing a reporter, and has promised to pay legal fees for supporters who physically confront protesters. This has led to concerns that a contested convention this year could boil over into violence in Cleveland fueled by disgruntled Trump supporters; Trump himself has predicted “riots” if the convention doesn’t lead to him as the nominee.It’s unclear how serious Stone is about his protest plans, but he is certainly stoking the flames of the idea that Trump is about to get the nomination stolen out from under him. “The Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Romney, Ryan, McConnell faction has united and is moving into high gear to steal the nomination from Trump,” Stone wrote in a column for Infowars earlier this week.

Speaking of that column Stone wrote, his analysis of bankster lobbyist and former Senator Phil Gramm, now Cruz's economic guru, sounds like he could have come from Bernie's campaign or ahold DWT post. Gramm, he wrote, "virtually crashed the US economy. Gramm is largely responsible for two bills which led to the speculative bubble which popped in September 2008. First was his Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill repealed Glass Steagall, which separated investment banking from commercial banking. Its repeal-- which was signed into law by President Clinton, with the backing of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers-- opened the door for a flood of money, from commercial banks, to flow into mortgage-backed securities and other funny-money schemes, which blew up in 2008. The second bill was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), which totally freed derivative trading from any regulatory oversight. This was another Phil Gramm bill, and was central to the bubble creation from 2000 to 2008, and then again today." More Stone:

This is the insiders pulling strings illustration of power politics that will be played in Cleveland. While Mr. Trump leads in winning primary and caucus elections, and has won more delegates, the Establishment will stack the delegations to the convention, where the votes on the rules and seating of delegates could ultimately choose the nominee.

Stacking the convention and its committees with supporters is the last option for Cruz, because a contested convention is his only viable path to the nomination. The Texas Senator must win 85% of the remaining delegates to win outright, a highly unlikely scenario with many states awarding delegates proportionally.The Kingmakers aren’t wedded to Cruz but the long shot nomination of a Romney or Ryan may be a reach too far. What the Kingmakers must do first is stop Trump.Don’t underestimate the establishment’s desperation to overthrow the democratically expressed wishes of the people with a rigged convention. This time the conspirators are banking on the fact that the nomination will not be decided on the first ballot, but in a series of procedural votes by the entire convention. This will be the tell.At the same time the Bosses are furious at Governor John Kasich and his handler John Weaver. He hasn’t a hope of winning anything, but if he dropped out of the race the 66 delegates he picked up for winning Ohio would then go to Trump, who placed second. Kasich is playing for a Vice Presidential slot on somebody’s ticket.The establishment elite will do anything and everything they can to disregard the democratically expressed wishes of the American people. They will claim they are trying to strengthen the Republican Party for the general election. The truth is that if they succeed it will tear the GOP apart and make the nomination worthless.All the establishment elite are really interested in is keeping their grip on power within the party and maintaining their influence peddling businesses. I know. I was once one of the highest paid lobbyists in Washington. They really could care less who wins the general election. Most in the GOP lobbyist class derive their livelihood from the Republican majorities in Congress and they see Hillary Clinton as transactional, someone you can rent if not buy.The establishment have been running the Republican Party for so long, and wring the game for so long, that they haven’t realized things have changed. The rise of Trump is a tidal wave. In their deluded minds their plan to steal the nomination from Donald Trump will work just the same as it did with Ron Paul in 2012. But Trump has a constituency that will not stand for it.Trump has managed to awaken the silent majority of Americans who previously either did not bother to vote or just shrugged their shoulders and accepted that the system is rigged and the little man cannot have an impact. Today Trump has become a leader for the non-elites. He is an alternative to doing the bidding of Bushs and Clintons and their ilk who have become richer and richer while the ordinary people have become poorer and poorer and America itself turned into a debt-ridden shadow of its once great self.

The other side of the coin comes from a different kind of right-wing crackpot, Stephanie Cegielski, a low-end GOP operative who is trying to claim she was a key player in the early stages of the Trump campaign. She's lying about that but she was involved in the short-lived Make America Great Again SuperPAC that Trump illegally raised money for then denied he even knew about, and then disbanded when things started getting dicey.Aside from puffing herself up, her point was to paint Trump as a protest candidate who could get into second place while getting some free publicity for his brand. "The Trump camp," she wrote, "would have been satisfied to see him polling at 12% and taking second place to a candidate who might hold 50%. His candidacy was a protest candidacy... And I am now taking full responsibility for helping create this monster-- and reaching out directly to those voters who, like me, wanted Trump to be the real deal."

My support for Trump began probably like yours did. Similar to so many other Americans, I was tired of the rhetoric in Washington. Negativity and stubbornness were at an all-time high, and the presidential prospects didn't look promising.In 2015, I fell in love with the idea of the protest candidate who was not bought by corporations. A man who sat in a Manhattan high-rise he had built, making waves as a straight talker with a business background, full of successes and failures, who wanted America to return to greatness.I was sold....I don't think even Trump thought he would get this far. And I don’t even know that he wanted to, which is perhaps the scariest prospect of all.He certainly was never prepared or equipped to go all the way to the White House, but his ego has now taken over the driver's seat, and nothing else matters. The Donald does not fail. The Donald does not have any weakness. The Donald is his own biggest enemy.A devastating terrorist attack in Pakistan targeting Christians occurred on Easter Sunday, and Trump’s response was to tweet, "Another radical Islamic attack, this time in Pakistan, targeting Christian women & children. At least 67 dead, 400 injured. I alone can solve." ... [T]ake a moment to appreciate the ridiculous, cartoonish, almost childish arrogance of saying that he alone can solve. Does Trump think that he is making a cameo on Wrestlemania (yes, one of his actual credits)?This is not how foreign policy works. For anyone. Ever.

Superhero powers where "I alone can solve" problems are not real. They do not exist for Batman, for Superman, for Wrestlemania and definitely not for Donald Trump.What was once Trump's desire to rank second place to send a message to America and to increase his power as a businessman has nightmarishly morphed into a charade that is poised to do irreparable damage to this country if we do not stop this campaign in its tracks.I'll say it again: Trump never intended to be the candidate. But his pride is too out of control to stop him now.You can give Trump the biggest gift possible if you are a Trump supporter: stop supporting him.He doesn't want the White House. He just wants to be able to say that he could have run the White House. He’s achieved that already and then some. If there is any question, take it from someone who was recruited to help the candidate succeed, and initially very much wanted him to do so.The hard truth is: Trump only cares about Trump.And if you are one of the disaffected voters-- one of the silent majority like me-- who wanted a candidate who could be your voice, I want to speak directly to you as one of his biggest advocates and supporters.He is not that voice. He is not your voice. He is only Trump's voice.Trump is about Trump. Not one of his many wives. Not one of his many "pieces of ass." He is, at heart, a self-preservationist.In fact, many people are not aware of the Trump campaign's internal slogan, but I will tell you. It is stolen from a make-believe television presidency on The West Wing where Martin Sheen portrayed President Bartlet. The slogan on the show amongst the idealistic group of Bartlet's staff was “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet.”
Inside the Trump camp, the slogan became "Let Trump Be Trump."...The man does not know policy, nor does he have the humility to admit what he does not know-- the most frightening position of all....I consider myself a part of the silent majority that led to Trump’s rise, which is why I want you to know that I am with you-- I wanted Trump to be real, too.He is not.He even says so himself. His misogyny? That's the character.

His presidential candidacy? That's a character, too.The problem with characters is they are the stuff of soap operas and sitcoms and reality competitions-- not political legacies.Trump made me believe. Until I woke up.And he has no problem abusing your support the same way he cheated hard-working men and women out of millions of dollars, for which he is now being sued.I came into this eager to support a savvy businessman who received little outside funding. I loved Trump's outsider status. But a year has now passed since I was first approached to become part of Team Trump....Unfortunately, the more vitriolic Trump has become, the more the people responded to him. That drove him to push the boundaries further and further.I also started seeing a trend of incompetence and deniability.When there was a tweet that contained an error, he would blame it on an intern; when there was a photo containing a World War II Nazi Germany background, he would blame it on an intern; when he answered questions in an overtly controversial fashion, he would claim that he did not properly hear the question. He refused to take responsibility for his actions while frequently demanding apologies from others.Imagine Trump wronged you, even in the smallest possible way. He would go to the grave denying he had ever done anything wrong to you-- ever.Trump acts as if he's a fictional character. But like Hercules, Donald Trump is a work of fiction.No matter how many times he repeats it, Trump would not be the "best" at being a president, being in shape, fighting terrorism, selling steaks, and whatever other "best" claim he has made in the last 15 minutes.He would be the best at something, though. He is the best at looking out for Donald Trump-- at all costs.Don’t let our country pay that price.

Vote for Bernie. He's actually offering to work with the American people to solve the problems Trump is exploiting for his own very dangerous-- dangerous for us and our families-- ego trip.